The laird’s orders being too positive to be disobeyed, Ella and her brothers were permitted to enter their new dwelling by the time the herrings began to appear from the deep seas to the north. As Ella was anxious to be preparing her resources against the rent day, she watched the first signs of the approach of the fish, determining to try the experiment of selling them fresh to the people at the other end of her island, who, having no boats, could not fish for themselves. Ronald was going out to his usual labour in the field one July morning, when he observed Ella looking first up to the sky and then abroad over the glittering Sound in which the islands lay, like vessels becalmed, and beyond which arose the blue peaks of Argyleshire.
“The sun is bright over Lorn, Ella; were ye thinking of a trip to-day?”
“Indeed I was,—not with the nets,—time enough for that; but we might try with the hook and see if the shoals are near; but if the sun will not keep out, we shall only lose our day.”
“What is Archie going to do?”
“Archie, my man,” said his sister, “will ye bring me some eggs this day? See, the fowl are waiting for ye.”
“We’ll wait a bit,” said Ella to her brother: “if he does not come back in half an hour, we may trust to the sun not to cheat us.” So Ronald looked out the rods and hooks, while his sister bustled about the cottage before she girded herself for the oar. While thus employed, she sang in the raised voice with which maidens sing in these islands. Ere long, she turned round and saw Archie sitting at the door-sill fastening a piece of string to a switch, in imitation of the rods Ronald was preparing.
“Well, Archie; have you quarrelled with the birds to-day, that ye are home so soon? And where are my eggs?”
“The fowl must wait,” muttered Archie. “I can’t play to-day.”
“Are ye ill, my lad?” enquired his sister, tenderly passing her hand over his forehead: but Archie withdrew himself and began switching himself with his new rod.
“Ye may go to the field, Ronald; I’m not for the sea to-day,” said Ella. And in less than an hour the sky was overcast, and summer storms swept over the Sound at intervals till night.
“We may always trust Archie,” observed Ronald. “He has a keener sight into the place of storms than we.”
The next day the birds did not wait in vain for Archie. He was stirring as soon as they, having stolen out from his sister’s side at dawn, and crossed the bar of sand while the tide was yet low. When the sun peeped above the mountains of Lorn, as fair as on the preceding day, the little lad shouted and clapped his hands above his head; whereupon myriads of sea-birds rose fluttering round him, and wheeled, and dipped, and hovered with cries that would have dismayed a stranger, but which Archie always gloried in provoking. While they drove round his head like autumn leaves in a storm, the terns and gulls screaming, the auks piping, and the cormorants croaking, the boy answered them with shouts and waved his bonnet over his head. Then he clambered to the highest point he could reach that he might watch the long files of solan geese, as they took their morning flight southwards, and be sure that they were out of sight before he filled his bonnet with their eggs.
His sister and Ronald observed him when they had pushed off from the beach, and were winning their way, each with a steady oar, to the deep waters beyond the bay.
“Fare ye well, Archie,” shouted Ronald in a voice which made the rocks ring again; but Archie took no notice.
“He is too busy to mind. See how he peeps over yon ledge that neither you nor I dare climb. I wager he finds a prize there: he’s dancing with pleasure. He has taken them all, and down he creeps,—aye, take care, my lad: that’s it; now on his knees, and there finding a step with his foot. Ye see he never slips. Now he’s down, I’ll try to win a look.”
Ella sang with all the power of her lungs, and this time Archie turned, clapped his hands and stood still to watch the boat.
“He will not be home sooner than we,” said Ronald. “He is happy to-day, and he will wait for the afternoon ebb.”
“I have put some more bannocks in his hole,” said Ella, “and some fresh water, so he will want for nothing till night.”
“And the storm cast up so much weed yesterday,” said Ronald, “that he may float all the day, if he likes.”
This floating was Archie’s favourite amusement, in the interval between the departure of the gannets in the morning and their return from the south at eve. There was a strong current round the Storr, from an eddy below the hole he called his cave quite round the point to a ledge of rocks on the other side of the promontory; which ledge being a favourable spot for embarkation, was called the quay. Archie’s delight was to drop feathers, straws, weed, or eggshells, into the eddy, to watch them come up again after they had disappeared, and float round the point, and to find them again collected at the quay. Nobody could please him so well as by giving him a new substance to float; and he brought home many a gannet for the sake of the feathers, more than for the kind smile and stroke of the head with which Ella rewarded such enterprises. She was proud of Archie’s feats in bird-catching; and if ever she spoke to a stranger on her domestic affairs, represented Archie as adding to the resources of the household, in no small degree. He seldom exerted himself to hunt the puffins out of their burrows in the rock, and had not sense or patience to manage snares; but such birds as were stupid enough to go on laying their eggs where they were taken away as soon as they appeared, and such as were tame enough to sit still and be taken by the hand, were Archie’s prey. He twisted their necks as he had seen his brothers do, and pouched them in his plaid, and still conceived himself to be on terms of close friendship with the species, fancying that their morning screams were cries of invitation to him, and returning the compliment at eve, by singing southwards from the highest point he could reach, if he thought them late in coming home.
Ella was not mistaken in thinking the herrings were come. There were so many stragglers ready to be caught with newly-tinned hooks, that it was evident a shoal was at hand, and that her nets might be brought into use within a few days.
“See there!” said Ella, when late in the afternoon she and her brother suspended their labour to eat and rest; “it brightens one’s eyes to see such a spoil for one day.”
“And such fine fish too,” replied Ronald. “My heart misgave me this morning lest we should find them like what they were last year. It would be a good thing for such as we if we could judge of herring like cod, and know when we should find them well-fed and most fit to be eaten. Last year they were as lean as a moor, and now they are as plump as a barley-field.”
“Thanks be to Him that guides them in the deep waters,” said Ella; “there will be joy under many a roof this season.”
Ronald reverently uncovered his head. “I wonder,” said he, “that we see no more boats. Yon sloop is from Greenock, I wager; come to take up herrings and kelp. She may keep her anchor down long; for not a hook has been thrown in the Sound till ours, that I could see, and yonder is the first kelp fire within sight this season.”
“Ye’ll have one of your own, next season, Ronald, and, I doubt not, it will show light betimes. So willing as ye are to help in the field and on the water, we owe ye our toil when the storms come. The field once laid out, and the profits of the fish safe pouched, and Fergus’s peat stored, he and I will be your servants in our turn, Ronald, and cut and cull weed as fast as ye can draw it in. The rope is begun already.”
“Is it? How thoughtful ye are, Ella! When could ye find time to think of my rope?”
“O, there’s ever time for what ought to be provided. I have thinned the pony’s tail now and then for a long time, so that I have near hair enough; and when Archie was heavy one day, I thought I could work for you and sing to him at one time; and in the storm yesterday I twisted more. We shall have a long stout rope before the first large drift of weed, and if ye crop the ledges as plentifully as they promise, we shall have a grand fire, one of the first of the season. How proud it will make me, Ronald, to help to row over your first venture of kelp!”
“Not so proud as it will make me to put the money into the pouch, Ella. To think that I help to pay the laird!”
“I wish it might be into his own hands,” said Ella. “I should like to make you the bearer of it then.”
“And if not,” said Ronald, “it will be honour enough to discharge ourselves of Mr. Callum. Ye have taught me my lesson there, Ella; and when the time comes, I’ll show ye a picture of yourself as like as a lad can be to a tall woman. I’ll go out beside the door when I hear the pace of his pony on the shingle, and fold my arms in my plaid, and make a reverence about half as low as to the laird, only stiffer. And I’ll show the lap of the pouch and say, Here are the laird’s dues. Would it please you to count them now or when we have pledged your head and ours?’”
“Ye’re a saucy lad,” said Ella: “you know he can’t bear to hear that any one is head over him.”
“That is the very reason everybody puts him in mind of it,” replied Ronald. “Well; all this time Fergus is holding his pony, and you are spreading the best cloth, and he is looking doubtful whether he shall come in, not liking the coldness of people so far below him, but smelling the hot goose very savoury.—So he comes in to count the dues at any rate, after which—”
“Now, Ronald, hold your tongue, or we shall have no dues to count. I’ve done my meal, and see where we have drifted, and the sun going down too.”
Ella plied both oars, while Ronald hastily devoured the rest of his bannock. When they got within easy reach of home, they once more drew in their oars and cast their hooks; but as it was with less success than before, Ronald again gave a loose to his tongue, in a way which his awe of his sister would not have allowed if Fergus had not been absent, and if his being Ella’s sole partner in an excursion of business had not established an unusual familiarity between them. After providing that Fergus should have his turn as rent-payer, he went on—
“I should like to make Archie do it for once. Do you think we could teach him his lesson?”
“I will not have him tried,” said Ella decidedly. “Archie is not made to hold a money-pouch, nor to have any worldly dealings.”
“Yet he brings in what helps to fill it.”
“And how innocently! It is his love for the things that God made that makes him follow sport. The birds are his playmates while they wheel round his head, and when he takes them on the nest, he has no thought of gain,—and evil be to him that first puts the thought into him! He strokes their soft feathers against his cheek, and watches the white specks wandering through the water like snow-flakes through the air. He does not look beyond the pleasure to his eyes and to his heart, and he never shall; and gold and silver are not the things to give pleasure to such an eye and such a heart, and he shall never know them.”
“Then he can never know how much he owes you, Ella, for the care you take of him. He little guesses how you have spun half the night to make his plaid, and won money hardly to find him a bonnet, and all the toil of your fishing, and grinding, and baking.”
“And why should he? He loves me, and all the better for not knowing why. He wears his plaid as the birds do their feathers; he feels it warm, and never thinks where it came from. He finds his barley-cakes and fresh water in his cave as lambs find clover and springs in their pasture. I see him satisfied, and like that he should love me for what costs me no toil,—for singing when he is heavy, and for wearing what he brings me when he is merry. When he lays his hot head in my lap, or pulls my skirt to make me listen to the wind, I value his love all the more for its not being bought.”
“I see you always lure him out when Mr. Callum is coming,” observed Ronald.
“Yes; and for the same reason I let him hide himself among the rocks the day the laird was here—I have a constant fear that Mr. Callum would be for sending him away; and so I hinderhinder our having any words about the lad. I am easier about that since the laird himself took notice of him so kindly: but Mr. Callum shall never lay a finger on his head, even to bless him, if I can help it. Better keep him innocent of the man entirely.”
“He is likely to be innocent of all but ourselves, and now and then the Murdochs; for he sees nobody else.”
“He has more companions than we have, too. He makes friendship where we only make war among living things. How he would handle these very fish that we stow away so carelessly! But come; we have caught the last we shall get to-day: let us make haste home and to rest. I must be stirring early and away to make the first winnings for the pouch, and Fergus shall have his turn with me to-morrow.”
Ella was determined to try for once whether she could not make her way by land to the north of the island. There was no road, and the difficulty of some of the passes was so great as to render the journey as fatiguing as one of twenty miles. In a strait line, it would not have been so much as two miles; but the many and steep ascents trebled the actual distance, while some were nearly if not quite impassable. If she could once, with her pony, traverse the island, she might be able to judge whether it would afford any market for her fresh fish; and at the same time learn whether there were fertile spots to which her brothers might drive their cattle, and whether it would answer to load their pony with weed for manure or kelp from different parts of the shore.
It proved a toilsome experiment. She sold some of her fish at her own price; but there were so few families, and they could so seldom afford to buy food, that it seemed hardly likely to answer to give up a whole day of her own labour and the pony’s for so poor a return, in addition to the previous day’s labour in fishing. They found some patches of good grass among the dells, but too difficult of access to be of much use; and their examination of the shore convinced them that Ronald had possession of the best portion within the circuit of the island.—All this settled, the next object was to prepare for a trip to the Greenock sloop.
Ronald had an opportunity of being dignified towards Mr. Callum long before the rent-day came round. The steward’s curiosity led him to visit the tenants and see how they were attempting to improve their croft; and one day in October his boat was seen rounding the Storr, and making for the landing-place. Archie happened to be amusing himself on his island at the time, and Mr. Callum was observed by Ella to turn round as if watching the boy’s proceedings up to the moment of landing. He looked by no means in his pleasantest mood.
“Good morning,” said he, as Ella awaited him at the door of the cottage. “Where are your brothers? I want your brothers.”
“Ronald is in the field. I will call him, if you will please to sit down. He will not detain you.”
“Let him alone, pray. The other lads will do as well.”
“Fergus is gone a trip to-day to sell his peat; we do not expect him till night.”
“To sell his peat! He had better take care of his own supply first, I think. You will want to use all you can get before the winter is over.”
Ella replied by opening a boarded window on one side of the cottage, through which was seen, at a little distance, a large well-built stack of peat. She next added some to her fire, that Mr. Callum might not have to complain that she grudged fuel in her hospitality.
“And pray how does Fergus manage to get peat enough for everybody? He keeps within his boundary, I hope.”
Ella was too much offended to answer otherwise than by pointing the way to the peat-land, where, however, the steward showed no inclination to go.
“I would have him take care what he is about,” continued Callum. “I have the laird’s strict orders that the live turf is to be replaced over every inch from which peat is dug.”
Ella observed that it was for Fergus’s interest to observe this rule on a land which he hoped to hold for a long time, since the peat could not otherwise be renewed.
“No need to tell me that, Ella; but these youngsters are in such a hurry to cut, especially when they can sell, that they forget the law. Remember, if I find a foot bare, the peat-land is forfeited.”
“Your threat is harsh, sir, and if you should act upon it, I should be obliged to appeal to the laird; but let us see whether Fergus has put himself in your power.” And she moved on.
“What is all this?” cried the irritable steward, as they walked up the little sloping beach towards the back of the tenement. “Your brothers get the fairies to help them, I think. Who ever saw barley growing out of a round shingle,—clean shingle without any soil?”
“My father saw it, as he used to tell us, in rocky places where soil was scarce; and when we found we could do little with our field this season, Ronald bethought himself of this plan; and it answers very well, you see. We laid down sea-weed pretty thick, and dropped our seed into it, and now the manure is changed into food for us.”
“Poor grain enough,” said Callum.
“Not so good as we hope to raise in our field, but good enough to be acceptable to those who would otherwise have none.”
“And pray how long do you mean to let it stand? The wind will soon make it shed its grain, and then much good, may the straw do you!”
Ella observed that it had been late sown, so that they were glad to let it stand to the last moment. The autumn was particularly serene and warm, so that the grain was still uninjured; but it was to be cut the next day but one, when she should have sold her fish and made room for her humble harvest.—What fish? and where was she going to sell it?—She had salted a cask of herrings, and was about to make a trip to the sloop from Glasgow now in the Sound to dispose of the produce of her fishing.
Callum muttered something about their taking good care of themselves; and the too great kindness of the laird not to ask rent for all they held. It should be done soon, he could promise them.—Whenever they had a neighbour who should follow the same occupations, Ella quietly observed, they should be willing to pay rent for the field, and the waters, and the peat-ground, and the kelping-shore.
“And why not sooner, if I chose to ask it?”
“Because it would answer better to us to move to some place in equal condition, where no rent would be asked.”
“And where will you find such an one, my lass?”
Ella mounted the rock near, and pointed to one island and another and another where situations as good as this had not yet been taken possession of, and which the laird would be glad to see improved, provided he received the interest of the capital he laid out. Callum observed that she seemed to think herself very knowing, and asked where she got all this wisdom. When he found that the matter had been talked over and settled with the laird himself, he had nothing more to say on that subject.
He was not more fortunate on the next topic. He asked who it was on the Storr that was screaming like a sea-gull, and throwing his arms about as if he was going to fly across the Sound? Ella paused a moment before she replied that it was her brother Archibald; and then underwent a cross-questioning about the lad, and the reasons why he had not been introduced with the rest into Mr. Callum’s august presence. An obvious mode of venting his spleen now presented itself. He insisted upon what Ella did not attempt to deny, that the Storr did not come within her boundaries, and followed this up by a prohibition to every one of the family to set foot on the rock. Ella was now truly glad that she had obtained the laird’s special permission for Archie to haunt the rock as much as he pleased. Mr. Callum’s temper was not improved by learning the fact. He did not pretend to doubt it; for, in the first place, he knew Ella to be remarkable for strict honour; and, in the next, she seemed so guarded on all points, that he began to think it prudent not to expose his authority to more mortifications.
Ronald now appeared, ready to show Mr. Callum what had been done in his department, as well as in Fergus’s. Ella cautioned her brother by a look which he well understood, to keep his temper and restrain his tongue, and then returned to her occupations in the cottage. Callum resumed the subject of Archie, but could make little out of Ronald about him; for, besides that the tender respect in which they held the poor lad made them unwilling to speak of his peculiarities to strangers, Ronald knew his sister’s desire to keep Archie out of Callum’s notice. He was now rather more discreet than was necessary, and left an impression on the steward’s mind that there was some mystery about the boy,—a mystery which must be penetrated.
He did not accept Ella’s proffered hospitality, having already ordered his dinner at the farm; but he sauntered down again in the evening to see Fergus come home, and hear whether he had made a good bargain of his peat. A fit of superstition about the fairies came upon him again when he heard that not only was the present cargo sold among the inhabitants of a sandy island near, but so much more was wanted, that Ronald must borrow Murdoch’s boat, the first convenient day, and accompany Fergus in their own in another trip to the same market. Callum laughed when Fergus said he had taken no money, his customers not being possessed of any coin; but he brought oatmeal, salt, and a light basket, or rather pouch, made of birch twigs and oatstraw, for Archie to carry eggs in. He was offered oil, but thought they had obtained enough from their fish to last the season. Ella approved his bargain, and said that oatmeal and salt, being both wanted, were more to her than money just now, and would save her a voyage. So Fergus was happy, and nothing remained to be wished but that Mr. Callum would go away. He paced the little beach as if he was waiting for something, and at last asked impatiently when the younger lad would come home.
“When the tide is low enough for him to cross; maybe in two hours.”
This was too long for a cross person’s patience; so the steward departed without seeing Archie this time.
The morrow was to be a busy day,—the day of the first sale of salted herrings. As the cask was to be carried on board the sloop, Ella wished her brothers to go with her. She wanted their help, and also desired that they should gain such experience in that kind of traffic as would fit them for going without her on a future occasion: for she did not much like the idea of boarding the vessel and making her bargain among the sailors.
The lads embarked their cask, fitted, for the first time, the wooden key to the wooden lock of their door, carried Archie high and dry through the surf, and deposited him, laughing, beside his sister, and pulled stoutly round the point in the teeth of a strong and chilling wind. Archie was in one of his merry moods this day, which made his sister the less unwilling to leave him with the Murdochs at the farm till evening, which she was about to do. He laughed when the wind drove the spray in their faces, and mimicked the creaking of the oars in their sockets as they strained against the force of a rough sea. He made some resistance to being landed when they reached the cove below the farm, but took his sister’s hand and ascended the cliff with her while repeating that he wanted to go on the sea again.
The Murdochs were good-natured people, when nothing happened to make them otherwise, and they declared themselves delighted to see Archie, and promised to take all possible care of him. Ella reminded them that the only care necessary was to give him his dinner, and see that he did not stray beyond the farm.
When the rowers got fairly out to sea, they were dismayed to find that the sloop had disappeared during the night. There was every reason to fear that they were a day too late for the market, and that the last vessel to be seen that season was now sailing away from them.
“If it be,” said Ronald, “we must take a voyage to the Clyde islands, or perhaps to Greenock; and I should not much mind that: Ella could do without us for a few days.”
“We must prevent such a waste of time,” said Ella; “so pull away southwards, and let us see if we cannot overtake the sloop. She cannot have gone far with this wind. The first of you that wearies, give me the oar.”
The boys continued their rowing in silence till Ella desired Ronald to make for a boat some way off and hail it. He did so.
“Holla! Which way lies the Jean Campbell?”
“Gone northwards before the wind.”
Northwards! Then she could not have completed her cargo yet; “but would she return through the same Sounds?” they asked the people in the other boat.
“Hardly likely,” was the answer; “but there is another coming up, the Mary of Port Glasgow. If ye clear the point, ye’ll see her with all her sails set, unless she has stopped to take in kelp or herrings.”
Away went the boat again, and eager were the rowers to learn whether the market was yet open to them. In half an hour they came in sight of the Mary, not sailing before the wind as they expected; but rolling idly on the rough sea, while boats were making towards her from various points of the shores within sight.
When they came alongside, Ella spoke her errand; and on receiving an encouraging answer, would willingly have sent her brothers on board to manage their bargain, while she remained in the boat. But it was too important an affair for them to conduct, inexperienced as they were in traffic; and it was necessary for her to go on deck of the Mary. While talking with the master, and observing no one else, she did not perceive, as Ronald did, that a man on deck who looked like a passenger, was watching her closely, and drawing nearer to listen to what she said. Ronald placed himself beside his sister, and then the stranger looked down into the boat where Fergus remained.
“Will you make room for me, Fergus?” he asked. “Will you take me home with you to see your father and Archie?”
Fergus reddened all over; and when he made his reply, the stranger was moved also.
“Your father dead!” he exclaimed. “I never heard it. Let me come to you that you may tell me all.”
“You must ask Ella if there’s room for you,” said Fergus; “besides, I don’t know who you are.”
“Do you ever think of one Angus that you once knew?”
“Aye, often enough, and wonder if he be dead. Why, I do believe you are Angus, sir! Ronald, Ronald! See if this be not Angus back again.”
It was Angus; but so changed, that it was no wonder his younger friends did not know him after five years of absence. Ella knew him at a glance, when the sound of his name made her turn her head. She looked steadily in his face, and asked, with a calm voice, what brought him among the islands again?—but her cheek was pale as ashes, and her hands trembled so that she could hardly hold the money which the impatient master was in a hurry to pay her. Angus, as agitated as herself, made no reply to her question, but leapt into her boat in order to assist her down. She drew back immediately.
“Ella! you will let me go home with you. We must not part almost before we have met. I am bound for Garveloch, and you must let me row you home.”
“You do not know our present home, Angus. If you choose to seek us there, you will find a welcome; but I cannot take you.”
Angus now grew pale. He turned quickly round upon Fergus,—
“Is Ella married?”
“No.”
With a light step he sprang back into the Mary, whispering to Ella as he handed her down,
“I have much to say, and am eager to say it. For whatever reasons you refuse to let me go with you, you cannot prevent my following. Farewell now. You will soon see me.”
Ella turned back as she was departing to tell him that she had removed, and to describe where she might be found. Encouraged by this circumstance, Angus smiled, and Ella’s stern countenance relaxed.—Never had she frowned as Angus did when he heard the seamen jesting on the fishwoman who carried herself as high as a princess to the master. “It is not the way of fishwomen,” quoth they, “even when they bring half a cargo, instead of one poor cask like that.”
Angus thought to himself that she was a princess,—the princess of fishwomen. He knew her well,—all her thoughts and all her feelings, in former days, and he saw already that she had lost none of her dignity under the pressure of her cares. He presently arranged with the master to meet the Mary at a certain point among the islands, within a few days, for the purpose of removing his luggage; and obtained a seat in a boat whose crew engaged to set him on shore in Garveloch.
Scarcely a word was spoken in Ella’s boat during the return. Her brothers began to revive their recollections of Angus, of what he had taught them, and how he played with them, and of whatever he said and did; but observing that Ella, instead of joining in their conversation, drew her plaid over her head and fixed her eyes on the waters, they kept a respectful silence, and even refrained from asking a single question on the important subject of her traffic with the master of the Mary. The wind still rose and increased the difficulty of rowing so much, that the lads would soon have been disposed to leave off talking, if no restraint had been upon them. At last, Ella observed poor Fergus wiping his brows, though the gale was chill.
“Fergus, give me the oar. I have been very thoughtless,—or, rather, over full of thought,—or you should not have toiled for me all this time. Take my plaid, for this breeze is wintry.”
She threw her plaid round him and gave him a slight caress as she passed to take his place.
“Sing, Fergus,” said his brother, “it lightens the way.”
As soon as he had recovered his breath, Fergus sang an air which Angus used to love to time for them with his oar where he took them out to sea for pleasure, before their days of toil began. Ella joined her voice, perhaps for the purpose of checking the tears which began to flow faster than at any time since the night of her parent’s death. Apparently unconscious of them, she plied her toil and her song more vigorously when the boat neared the cove where they were to take in Archie. They looked out for him, hoping that the song might bring him down to the boat and prevent any loss of time in getting home. Nobody appeared, however, but one of Murdoch’s girls, standing stock still on the ridge of the rock. Ella signed and beckoned, and her brothers shouted for Archie; to all which the lass made no other answer than shaking her head like a weathercock.
“Give me my plaid,” said Ella, who instantly stepped on shore and mounted to the farm. She could see nobody for some time, and when she did, it was only the girl who had watched her landing.
“Where are all the family, Meg?”
“All gone, except Archie; he’s back again. Father and others are gone to the moor for peat, and mother is milking the cows a great way off.”
“And Archie? Call him, for we must be going.”
“He can’t get out,” said Meg, grinning, and pointing to Mr. Callum’s apartment, the shutters of which were closed. “He’s all in the dark, and he has been flogged for stealing the laird’s birds, and I don’t know how many eggs and feathers.”
Ella had scarcely patience to stand and hear the story. Archie, being left to himself, had wandered home and gained his rock. Callum had watched and followed him, and caught the poor boy with a solan goose in his bosom, eggs in his new basket, and a bunch of feathers in his cap. The steward had flogged Archie unmercifully with his cane, partly unaware, it must be hoped, of the true state of the case, since he had told the sufferer that his discipline was meant to teach him not to take what did not belong to him. He brought him back, closed the shutters of his apartment, pushed the boy in, and double-locked the door, telling the children who looked on in terror that they should be served in like manner if they attempted to speak to Archie till he should be released. He had now been shut up three hours, and Mr. Callum was not to be back till night. Ella shuddered when she heard that the boy had looked much flushed when he went in, and had screamed violently till, nobody taking notice, his cry had gradually sunk to a low moaning. She rushed to the door and called him in her gentlest voice. No answer. She sang as she was wont to do when he was ill; and then the moan was heard again.
“He will die unless I can get to him. I know that sound well. Run, Meg, and tell your father Archie will die, if we do not break the door that I may nurse him. Run for your life!—Hush! Archie, hush! I am coming, lad, and we will let in the light again, and you shall see how the sea is tossing. I am coming, Archie; be patient, lad.”
She flew to the cliff to beckon her brothers. In a few minutes, almost everybody came but the one most wanted, Mr. Callum. Everybody was very sorry of course: none more so than those who ought to have prevented this mischief. They were willing to do anything,—to break door or window as soon as desired. But no proper tools were at hand, and the noise terrified Archie so extremely, that it was thought best to let things remain as they were till Callum’s return, which could not be much longer delayed. Ella sent her brothers home directly, afraid that she should not be able to keep their tempers within bounds when the enemy should present himself. She waited, pacing up and down the steep rocky path which overlooked her own dwelling, as well as the way by which the steward was expected to approach.
After a while, she distinctly saw her brothers standing in conversation with a third person, beside the gate of the field. Supposing the stranger to be Callum, she watched with the utmost anxiety, expecting each moment to see the lads show some sign of wrath; but their gestures were not those of anger, nor did their companion, on a closer examination, look like the steward. At this instant a voice close behind her made her start.
“So you are come at last, Mr. Callum,” said she. “I hope it may be in time to prevent your committing murder. How do you propose to comfort us if you find Archibald dead?”
“Dead! Pooh, nonsense! let me tell you, madam, I came down just in time to prevent theft this morning. If the laird is pleased to let idle boys play on his estate, he gives no leave for them to steal the produce. I have not done with master Archibald yet; I mean to make a further example of him.”
“Ye’ll be too late,” replied Ella, with a convulsed countenance. “One on whom God himself has put the mark of innocence, one that has been ever under the guidance of good powers,—one that has only been kept here so long by being cherished, and no ill being suffered to come nigh him—is not one to live under your hands, Mr. Callum; and knowing this, I kept him out of your sight, till an evil day has laid him open to blame and punishment. Come, sir, and see if your work is not done; and if not, beware how you finish it!”
So saying, she strode onwards and beckoned him after her; but he stood still. Callum shared largely in the superstitions which abound in the islands, where the strongest and proudest minds are subdued by fears too absurd to affect children in more enlightened places. Connecting in a moment Archie’s peculiarities, which he had been unable to understand, Ella’s hints of his being the favourite of unseen powers, and all that was extraordinary in herself as she stood with flashing eyes, and a working countenance, and her tall form trembling with some other passion than fear, Callum resolved to be quit of her and the boy as soon as might be; but above all things to prevent their meeting in his presence, lest they should work some harm upon him.
“Come back, Ella,” said he, in a somewhat softer tone; “you will only do harm by going with me. The truth is, I have sent to the laird for his pleasure about the lad, as there happened to be a messenger going. I shall have an answer by the morn, and then I will release your brother,—if you stay out of my sight, not otherwise, I promise you: so go your ways home, and trust the boy with me for the night. You well may, for he never lay in a gentleman’s room or on a gentleman’s bed before, I’ll be bound to say.”
All remonstrance, all entreaty was vain to alter Callum’s pretended purpose: so Ella had recourse to a secret plan in her turn. She resolved to steal up to the farm as soon as it should be dark, and every one gone to rest, and to work on Mr. Callum’s fears by means which she well understood. She now asked impatiently where the laird was. Not where she could reach him to lodge a counter-plea, the steward answered with a grim smile: he held that part of justice in his own hands. Ella could learn nothing more than she already knew,—that he must be near, as his answer would arrive by morning.
As she was going slowly down to the beach, she met Angus. “If ye have any friendship for us,” cried she, showing her surprise only by her raised colour, “if ye ever valued my father’s blessing, help us now;” and she related what had just passed. Angus instantly replied that the laird was at Oban. If so, Ella said, the messenger’s boat ought to be in sight; and she looked intently over the troubled expanse of waters, now heaving and tossing in an autumn gale as if they would swallow up the scattered islands.
“One might easily miss a small bark in such a sea,” said she, “and the gloom is settling fast. See how the mists are gathering about the Storr! The osprey will scarce find his nest, or the bark keep clear of shoals.”
“There he is!” cried Angus. “Just below, yonder, a boat shot out from behind the rock, and now she is labouring with the swell. She has only two rowers. Your brothers shall go with me, and we will reach the laird first.”
“Go, and my blessing on you,” said Ella. “Bring back justice and a word of kindness for Archie, and I will thank you for ever.”
No time was lost; and in a few minutes the two boats were seen rowing as close a race as ever had honour or profit for its object. Ella could not help wondering whether the steward was watching the struggle with all the anxiety that he deserved to feel, and all the shame of being discovered in a falsehood. It was impossible that an answer should return from Oban before the morning, and Callum’s having said so was a new proof that he was frightened at what he had done.—The daylight was now failing fast: the Argyleshire mountains lost the red tinge which had been cast upon them from the western sky. All was gray and misty, and when Ella fancied for a moment that her brothers’ boat had given up the race and changed its course, she supposed that her overstrained sight had deceived her, and retired slowly homewards to await the hour when she might make another attempt upon the farm.
It was a dreary night. The wind swept past in gusts, and hail pattered in hasty showers upon her shingled roof, as she sat beside her peat-fire, striving to compose her busy thoughts. She could settle to no employment, but looked out frequently to see if she could discover the moon’s place in the sky, in order to form some idea of the time. At length, believing it was near midnight, she equipped herself for her expedition, strapping her plaid close about her, and carrying warm clothing for the boy. While doing this, she fancied she heard a footstep without. She paused, but supposed it could only be the rattling of the shingle as the waves retreated; but, not being perfectly convinced, she looked about cautiously through the darkness as she went forth, and listened intently. Before she had gone many paces, a sudden gleam of moonlight showed her the shadow of a man, standing up against the side wall of the cottage. She quickly retreated, but not through fear. She lighted a slip of pinewood and without ceremony held it up in the man’s face. It was Callum.
“You are come to tell me that Archie is dead,” said Ella, with forced calmness. “No wonder you linger by the way.”
“He is not dead nor likely to die if, as you say, the good powers are fond of him. I have left him with them, for he is past my management.”
“You have carried him to the sands to be drowned,” cried Ella, snatching hold of his cloak which was dripping wet.
“It was more likely I should be drowned than he,” said Callum, sullenly. “He scrambled over to the rock as if he saw the fairies waiting for him, and I found my way back as I could, but the water was up to my knees.”
“How long since?”
“Not above five minutes.”
“There is time yet,” cried Ella, hastening in for food and a bottle of milk. While she was making her rapid preparations, Callum, who had followed her, proceeded with his explanations that, as he could do nothing with the boy, who would neither eat, speak, nor sleep, he thought it best to carry him back to his haunt and let those manage him that could; and he hoped it would be the last he should have to do with people of her sort. A half-smile passed over Ella’s countenance; she made no reply, but pushed a seat beside the fire, set some barley-cakes and whisky on the table, pointed to the heap of fuel in the corner, and was gone, drawing the door after her. Callum had feeling enough to be stung with the reproach implied in these observances of hospitality. He pushed the food and drink from him and sat, with his hands upon his knees, muttering beside the fire. A thought struck him, he started up and ran after Ella, shouting,
“Let me hold the torch, lass, while you cross, and may be I can get over too and help to bring him home.” But Ella, who had already reached the low sand, waved him back contemptuously, and was half through the water before he arrived on the brink. Dashing, foaming, the tide did not look very tempting; and having seen Ella climb the opposite ledge, wring out her wet plaid and stride on, Callum returned, full of mortification, to the fireside.
The torch blew out before Ella reached Archie’s hole. As soon as she came within hearing, she tried to attract his attention by the usual methods, but obtaining no answer, began to fear that he had been placed in some other recess of the Storr. She groped her way in, however, and stumbled over him near the entrance. He shrieked as she had never heard him shriek before, and a fierce pang of indignation shot through her heart at him who had first made this innocent being subject to fear. She succeeded in soothing the boy; she lavished on him all the tender words that came with her tears; she cooled his hot forehead; persuaded him to eat, and hoping to make him forget where he was, and that anything painful had passed, she told him tales till he fell asleep with his arms round her neck. She had soothed herself in soothing him, and was too well inured to cold and wet to be much affected by them; so that she too leaned against the wall of the little cave and slept.
It was some hours after, but while the dawn was yet very faint, that Archie roused her by starting up and running to the mouth of the cave. A red light flickered upon his face as he stood; and his sister following, saw a kelp fire flaming high upon the beach. The season for kelp burning was considered over; but a glance at the boat drawn up on the shingle and at the figures about the fire showed her what it meant. Her brothers were already home, and finding the cottage empty, and not knowing in what direction she was gone, had lighted this fire as the best signal which could intimate their return without alarming Mr. Callum, to whom a kelp fire was one of the commonest of all sights.
“See, Archie, there is Ronald feeding the fire, and Fergus stirring it. They have made the fire to light us home.”
But Archie did not clap his hands as usual at the sight of a kelp fire, and seemed disposed to hide himself in the cave. It was because a third figure stood between them and the light. It was the first time he had feared a stranger; and again Ella had to battle with her mingled compassion and indignation. She tried the experiment whether Archie had any recollection of Angus, of whom he had been very fond five years before. She tempted him to a baby game which Angus used to play with him, but which had been laid aside as Archie grew taller. “Ah! Angus, Angus, I want Angus!” cried the boy, just as he used to do, and just as she wished to hear him, for the first time since Angus’s departure.
“Do you want Angus? Well, there he is, standing beside Fergus. Call him and perhaps he will hear you.”
Poor Archie tried, but he was too much exhausted to make himself heard to any distance; nor did Ella succeed better, as the wind was against her. For a full hour, she saw the three figures pace the beach, and look intently in all directions before they perceived her; but at last the fluttering of her plaid became visible to them through the grey dawn, and they ran down to the brink of the water, which was still too deep to be crossed on foot, though too shallow for a boat. They waved their caps in token of having succeeded in their errand, and awaited in the utmost impatience the sinking of the water. When the first patch of sand was left dry, Angus plunged through, and, well knowing Ella’s heart, gave his first attention to Archie. Ella gave him his cue: he hid his face with his bonnet, let Archie uncover it, as in old days, and was immediately known. Archie’s loud laugh was like music to his sister’s anxious heart. He put his arm lovingly round the neck of his old play-fellow, in order to his being carried home; and though feverish and evidently in pain, showed no greater signs of dulness and depression than on some former occasions of illness.
Ronald was impatient to tell his sister that they had found the laird by Angus having discerned his boat off one of the islands, half way between Garveloch and the shore. Callum’s messenger, proceeding to Oban, had overshot his mark, and missed giving the first version of the tale which both parties were in haste to tell. The laird had pronounced no judgment, but would probably land on Garveloch, in a day or two, and hear both sides of the question.
“Then,” said Ella, “thanks to your zeal, our point is gained.”
Angus’s zeal had indeed been equal to that of the brothers; in addition to which his patience had been most meritorious. He waited till Archie was safe before he said a word of his errand to Garveloch or made any reference to his former friendship with Ella and her family. His turn to be cared for came at last. Ella recovered her courtesy when the little party was seated at the morning meal.
“Welcome to our board, Angus,” said she. “You will excuse our being so late in saying the words and offering the hand of welcome.”
“Far more easily,” said Angus, grasping her offered hand in great emotion; “far more easily, Ella, than the coldness with which you offer it at last. If I were an utter stranger, you could not look more haughty than you do at this moment.”
“Nay, Angus; you have yourself ordered your reception. If you have made yourself a stranger for five long years, you cannot wonder that we look upon you as such.”
“I have ever explained, Ella, why I could not come; and as it pleased you to take no notice of my reasons, I left off offering them, though not till after a longer perseverance than you would have condescended to use.”
Reasons! How offered? By whom brought? When were they sent? These and many more questions were asked in a hurry by the two lads, while their sister waited in evident anxiety for an answer. It appeared that Angus had written two or three letters before he entered into the service of the nobleman in whose suite he had gone to America. Being there employed in the interior, he had no longer any means of sending to Scotland, but hoped that his former letters had proved him trustworthy; and that when he returned to his native country, he should be able to obtain some intimation that he would be welcome among his old friends. None such having arrived, he now came in person to see whether he was forgotten, or whether the family was dead and dispersed like his own, or what else could have happened. It now appeared for the first time that Ella and her brothers knew neither that his mother had died in Lorn, nor that he had entered into anybody’s service, nor that he had gone to America, or returned from abroad.
“Bless me!” cried Angus. “I do believe the fairies are in Garveloch, and Mr. Callum in the right after all! Come, Ronald, can you tell me who is king of England now?”
Ronald looked at Fergus, and Fergus at Ella, and Ella said she heard one of the seamen on board the Mary swear by king George.—Aye; but which king George? This was more than our islanders could tell; and they reminded Angus that till they boarded the sloop for the first time, they had not seen a strange face for years. The laird and Mr. Callum were their only visitors, and politics had never been talked in this island since the rebellion under the Pretender.
Angus said he could not be jealous of their ignorance about his proceedings in Canada, if no tidings of King George ever reached Garveloch. He looked grave, however, when he remarked that such complete separation from the world was a serious disadvantage in their traffic. As long as they knew nothing of the prices which their herrings and kelp bore in the market, they were completely at the mercy of those who came to buy of them.
“There!” cried Ronald with great delight, “I always said we should go ourselves to Greenock instead of selling to sloops in the Sound.”
“I do not think so, Ronald. You would pay more in time and trouble than the information would be worth. If there was anybody here who could read a newspaper——”
Nobody within reach, but Mr. Callum, had ever learned the alphabet, and they could not take the liberty of asking him for information, even if he came at the right time to give it. Angus observed that there would be an end of this difficulty if, as he hoped, he should settle in Garveloch.—In the midst of the shouts of the lads, and the shaking of hands caused by this hint, Angus looked down as bashfully as if he had never crossed the Atlantic and seen the world. He evaded all inquiries as to his plans, and seemed anxious to go back to the past.—He related that after being for some time in the service of the nobleman under whom he went out, he took office, at the particular request of his master, under the surveyor and agents appointed to measure and dispose of lands to new settlers.
“What made your master choose you for that service?”
“Many of the settlers were from our part of the kingdom, and the surveyor and agents were English. Quarrels arose out of their different ways of thinking and managing; and some one was wanted to mediate between them. I am heartily glad I was chosen, for I learned a great deal that I should never have known by other means.—It was not utter banishment either; for I now and then met a face I knew, and could talk with a countryman of friends at home. There was Forbes for one; you remember Forbes, Ella?”
“What! he that was suspected of pitching a man from his boat into the sea after a quarrel?”
“The same. He was innocent, I am convinced; but he was so weary of having it cast up to him, that he went abroad and settled in our district in Canada. He had two neighbours that I knew something of,—Keith, from Dumbarton, and Canmore the drover. Many a time did we look back together to the bare rocks and bleak moors of Scotland, while we were buried in the thickest of forests.—At those times, we used to wish, for the sake of all parties, that we could send you half our trees, for we were as much troubled with having too many as you with too few.”
“Nay,” said Fergus, “not too few. There are near a dozen birches on the farm above; and one may see a good many alders in the hollows near where we used to live.”
Angus laughed heartily at Fergus’s idea of a sufficiency of wood, and explained to him the proportion of trees to an acre in a Canadian forest.
“What can they do with them?” Ronald asked.
“Get rid of them as fast as they can; but it costs vast labour.—Forbes, who was not driven there by poverty, and carried money, was saved the trouble of clearing. He took a fine fertile piece of ground on the understanding that he would have to pay the highest rent of anybody in the neighbourhood. Canmore was the next to settle; and he liking the axe little better than Forbes, paid a sum for having his land cleared; but as his land was not so good as Forbes’s, he did not pay real rent for some time.”
“Did Forbes begin paying real rent?”
“No; for there was land equally good elsewhere, which he knew he could have for the cost of clearing and enclosing.”
“Then he paid the interest of capital laid out, as we do for this cottage and fence, and as Canmore did when he took possession of his land?”
“Just so. He first began to pay rent when Canmore raised corn enough to live upon. Forbes raised five quarters over and above what his neighbour could procure from his land; and then the agent came upon Forbes for rent, and he was willing to pay the surplus for the use of the best land. Then Keith arrived, with his axe in his hand, and two stout sons by his side, and no other wealth whatever; so they paid nothing. They cleared the land themselves, and built their own log-hut, and just managed to raise food enough to support them in the humblest way; and thus they were living when I arrived in their neighbourhood.”
“But why do landowners give away land in this manner?”
“They only lent it to Keith till he should have brought it into a condition to pay rent, till which time nobody would have given anything for it; and for this loan they paid themselves by taking rent of Canmore. He raised three quarters more than Keith, and was willing to pay them as rent to keep the land he held.”
“Then Canmore paid more than half as much rent as Forbes?”
“No—that would not have been fair; for Forbes’s land was as much better than his neighbour’s as it had been before, and the difference of rent ought therefore to be the same. Forbes now paid eight quarters.”
“That is, five for his land being better than Canmore’s, and three for Canmore’s being better than Keith’s. Then if any body had taken worse land than Keith’s, he would have had to pay rent for the first time, and the rents of his neighbours would have been raised.”
“Certainly, and very fairly: for no one would take land that was not worth cultivating, and any land which produces more than would make it worth cultivating can pay rent.”
“Forbes’s time, then, for growing rich,” said Ronald, “was before he paid rent at all,—when he kept all the produce himself?”
“Yes; and a good deal of profit he made. He consulted me how he might best employ his capital, which was now double what he began with. He looked about for more land; but there was none but what was inferior to Keith’s.”
“If he had taken that,” said Ronald, “poor Keith must have paid rent, and so must Forbes himself,—not for his new land, but an increased sum for the old.”
“I advised him to lay it out rather in improving his old land. He could not, by using double capital, make it produce doubly; but he could make it yield more than inferior new land: but this raised his rent as much as if he had taken in inferior land. If the new land would have produced only three quarters, while the improvement of the old yielded five, it was perfectly fair that he should pay the surplus two quarters for rent.”
“Why, then, did you advise him to lay out his capital upon his old land? Either way must have been just the same to him in point of profit, if whatever was left over was to go to the landlord.”
“By no means. Forbes had now a lease of his superior land, so that he could take for his own share all the difference between his present rent and that which he would have to pay when his lease expired. He went on growing rich, since he not only made the fair profits of his capital, but had the benefit of all improvements till the time came for a new lease.—He laid out more and more capital upon his land, and though each time it brought in a smaller return in proportion, and though each would cause his rent to be raised hereafter, he went on improving for a long time.”
“What made him stop?”
“Finding that he would not be repaid for a further outlay.”
“What did he do with his money then?”
“He came to the surveyor and agent, and told them that the corn raised would sell much higher if there was an easier way of getting it into a good market. There were so few who wanted to buy corn within a convenient distance of this little settlement, that it was sold very cheap indeed, and was often changed away for things not half the value it would have had in a town. Forbes thought it would be worth while to make a good road to join a canal on which there was traffic to many populous places. He offered to advance a part of the capital necessary, if the agent would pay the rest. It was done, and all parties found the advantage of it. Poor Keith began to prosper now, though he had to pay rent, and to see it raised from time to time.”
“What! Rent raised again! Every thing seems to raise rent.”
“High prices do, as a matter of course. When the corn sold so well as to afford the settlers a fine profit, other settlers were in a hurry to come and grow corn, and the original cultivators improved their land more and more, and rents rose in proportion. Those who had long leases got up in the world rapidly, and the owners of the land were presently much more than paid for making the road.”
“But, Angus, rent seems to rise and rise for ever!”
“It would do so, if all countries were in the state of the one I have been describing. Wherever there is the greatest variety of soil, and the largest demand for food, rent rises fastest. The more equal in productiveness lands are made by improvement, and the more easy it is to obtain supplies from other places, the slower is the rise of rent. Forbes and Canmore were expecting to have their rents lowered when I left them, for it was so easy to get corn in abundance that the price had fallen very much, and would not pay for tilling some stubborn soils, which were therefore let out of cultivation.”
“I wish you would tell the Murdochs this,” said Ella. “They want me to think it hard of the laird to ask rent for my fishery; and they say that the price of herrings will rise as fast as the islands pay rent.”
“The laird can have no rent unless it answers to you to pay it. You bargain for a mutual advantage. He receives money for the use of the land and sea belonging to him, and you have the benefit of a good station.”
“They say that the sea ought to be as free as the air, instead of rent being asked for it.”
“The air would be let, if there were degrees of goodness in it, and if it could be marked out by boundaries and made a profit of like the sea and land; and again, if all land were equally good, and all parts of all seas and rivers equally productive, there would be no rent paid for either the one or the other. The laird who owns all the islands within sight, owns the sounds which divide them, as if they were so many fishponds; and if one part yields more herrings than another, or, which is nearly the same thing, if the herrings can be got out at less expense of capital and toil at one point than another, it is very fair that a bargain should be struck for the benefit of both parties, whether the property in question be land or water.”
“Or rock either, I suppose,” said Fergus. “If we sold the feathers of Archie’s birds, might not the laird ask rent for the Storr?”
“He would ask a yearly sum of money, which we might fairly call rent. The birds are not produced by the rock as corn is produced by the power of the soil; but as long as the situation is so favourable to sea fowl as to cause a constant supply on the same spot, it may be said that it yields rent as justly as when we say the same thing of the sea; and much more justly than of mines.”
“I used to hear my father speak,” said Ella, “of the lead-mines in Isla, and of the high rent they once paid.”
“Yet the mines did not produce more lead in the place of that which was taken away, and therefore the lessees paid the proprietor merely a certain sum for the capital they removed from his property. They bought the lead of him, in fact, to sell again. They bought it buried in the ground, and sold it prepared for the market. Now, Fergus, tell me what rent is, before we begin to guess what I shall have to pay the laird, if I settle near you.”
“What farm will you have? Where is it? How large?”
“Answer me first,” said Angus, laughing. “What is rent?”
“The money that a man pays——”
“Nay; rent may be paid in corn, or kelp, or fish, or many things besides money. Better say produce.”
“Rent is the produce that remains to a man——”
“Ella is to pay rent,” interrupted Ronald, laughing.
“Well, well. Rent is the part of the produce paid to the landlord when his tenant has made as much as his neighbours on worse land will let him gain.”
“True, as far as your account goes; but not clear or full enough. You do not know yet, boys, how important it is for you to understand all this rightly before you pay rent yourselves, and even if you were never to pay.—Come, Ronald.”
“Rent,” said Ronald, “is that portion of produce which is paid to the landlord for the use of whatever makes corn and fish grow in the land or water which the tenant uses.”
“Or, as we say, ‘the use of the powers of production.’ Very well; this is what we mean by rent. Now, what does rent consist of?”
“Of whatever the richest has left over what the poorest makes of the same quantity of land and of money laid out upon it.”
“Just so; and therefore if your kelp-ledge yields more than mine next season, with equal pains, whatever difference there is will go to the laird as rent. If I get the intelligence I talked of from the market, you may make more while paying a rent, than you would ever have done rent-free, without knowing what your prices ought to be.”
“Had Forbes and his neighbours such intelligence before they sold their corn?”
“O yes; even before the road was made, newspapers found their way across the country; and afterwards we had intercourse with the towns at least once a week.”
“Then I wonder you did not stay where you were. The place seems to have been very prosperous.”
Angus answered, half laughing, that there was another kind of intelligence which he wanted, and could not obtain there, or any where but in Garveloch. Ella, seeing Angus’s eyes fixed upon her, rose and bent over Archie’s bed of heather, where the poor lad was still sleeping soundly.
“Your sister’s wheel has never stood still all this while,” said Angus to the lads. “She shames us for being so idle. What shall we do next?”
All bustled about upon this hint, and Ronald and Fergus made haste to their out-door employments, supposing that Angus would accompany them. After letting them go out, however, he softly closed the door, and returned to Ella’s side. He found no great difficulty in removing her feelings of displeasure at his long silence, when it was in his power to prove that he had indeed not been silent while he could persuade himself that he had encouragement to write. When Ella heard that he had been working for her all these five long years; that he had supported his hopes upon their tacit agreement when they parted; that he had returned for her sake alone, having no other tie than the natural love of country; when, moreover, he declared his willingness to settle in this very place, and adopt her sisterly cares as his own; when he kissed Archie’s forehead, and promised to cherish him as tenderly as herself, Ella had nothing to say. She shed tears as if she had been broken-hearted, instead of finding healing to a heart sorely wounded; and the only thing Angus had to afflict him was the thought how much each had suffered.
“They that have called me proud and severe,” said Ella, when she began to return his confidence, “little knew what a humbled spirit I bore within me, and how easily I feared I should forgive at the first word. They little guessed, when they bid me not be so careful and troubled about whatever happened, that all these things were like motes in the sunbeam to me, compared with the hidden thoughts from which my real troubles sprang. When they half laughed at me and half praised me to my father, as being like a mother to these growing lads, they did not know that it was because I spent on them the love I could not spend as a wife, nor how glad I was that my cheek withered, and that years left their marks upon me, that I might fancy myself more and more like their mother indeed. If you see me grow young again, and be made sport of like a girl by these tall youths,” she continued, smiling through her tears, “you will have to answer for it, Angus. Will you take the venture? You were ever the merry one, however, and my part was to be grave for us both. Are we to play the same part still, to keep the brothers in order?”